Blog has been silent for longer than I have intended.  You’d figure that I’d have at least a little more time being full time freelance now, but that is not the case.  It’s a good thing, and I”m proud of the fact that I have kept busy as a full time freelance photographer.  Only time will tell where things are going from here but a few people have asked and I figure why not address the question: What have I been working on exactly?

 For starters, I’ve been teaching the intro to studio lighting class at Ivy Tech this semester.  Good group.  The folks who are in there have been eating up everything I’ve thrown at them and it’s been really nice to have a group with that kind of interest.  That shot above was to illustrate adding a second light to a photographic setup.  I’ve changed the Syllabus a little bit for right now, as normally the students would be using 3 lights in the studio at this point but I felt as though that was bypassing the important stuff.  They are all still using 1 light right now.  The way I see it, adding just one light to your photography will increase it’s quality and your skill by 100 fold at a minimum.  Adding 2+ lights is just confusing if done too quickly, and really that first light is the biggest bump so we are still stuck with one light for now.  We’ll see how my theory holds up as we get closer to mid semester, but it’s a talented group and I really look forward to what they are going to turn in.  That being said, next semester I’m teaching the Journalism 214 class at Ivy Tech.  It’s in the evening I believe, and I’ve got some neat stuff already in the works for it.  If you’re interested in taking a 16 week course, head over to Ivy Tech to check it out.

(Not shot for the project at hand, but a good example of the type of stuff)

Next on the list I’ve been shooting a lot of high end studio product photography.  Everything from little screws, to Welding molds.  Yea, that’s right.  Obscure stuff, but all very high quality and detail.  It’s been a real learning experience in terms of what some things are and do, on top of how to shoot high end product photos faster, and of better quality than you might imagine.  What if I told you the shot in that welding mold link was almost straight out of the camera?  Yea, stuff like that.

I’ve also been finishing up a few wedding albums that are still in the final proofing stages.  The pictures have all been done for a long while now, it’s just the finishing touches on the albums that take some time (not to mention the fact that it takes 10 days to print the style albums I produce).  The albums I produce are 100 pages long, encyclopedia bound archival wedding albums.  They usually have between 100-300 photos of the wedding inside of them as a documentation of the day.  I prefer doing this over the 10 page super thick paged albums because these really allow you to show your wedding to everyone, not just a few selects.  Anyway, I put together the album, and then the bride and groom and I sit either in person or on the phone to discuss changes which happen in real time during the conversation.  It’s a time consuming process, and I’ll probably do a blog on just it at some point, but it’s well worth the time and effort.

Also shot a magazine article for 24×7 magazine recently.  Karen Waninger was named the Hospital Technology Manager of the year, and was the cover story for the magazine.  When I got the call I was most certainly pleased to have the assignment having spent so much time in the hospital system when working for the Indianapolis Star, but also because it was the same publisher who used me for the Skull Reshaping article last year.  Gosh that was a year ago already.  Time flies.  Not sure why the photo looks a little bogus at the top of the 24×7 article page, but oh well.  The web does strange things sometimes.

And there you have it.  My current excuses as to why the blog has been silent.  Oh yes, one other thing.  I’ve started to re-design the website with the help of my incredible wife/ultimate web badass Shannon.  Not sure when it is going to be finished, but I’m excited about it that’s for sure.  Would you believe the site has been the same now for almost 3 years?  Time for a new look.  Lets do this.  Until then though, there are a few other things coming down the pipe that I have some hope for.  Could make some really great blog material if they get off the ground, but we’ll see.  When they get off the ground and hit the blog trust me; you’ll know.   Thanks for sticking with me, and More Soon (promise).